Submission Guidelines

Calendar / Variant Literature Journal

To be considered for our Summer 2026 issue,
please submit between March 1 and April 14, 2026.

General

• Please submit only once per submission period unless otherwise invited.
• We do not accept e-mail submissions; all work must be submitted through Submittable.
• Please send all work in one file.
• We aim to respond to your work within two months; our average response time is closer to one month.
  
• Simultaneous submissions are fine, but please notify us immediately if your work is accepted elsewhere.
• We do not accept previously published works.
• We do not accept any AI-assisted or AI-generated work.

Poetry

• There are no format restrictions. Limit your submission to 5 poems totaling no more than 10 pages.

Fiction

• Authors should limit submissions to no more than 20 pages  (5500 words).
  

Flash and Micro Series

• Please send ONE piece of flash fiction or flash nonfiction (1200 words or less) or a connected series of THREE micros (250 to 400 words each).

What happened to the nonfiction genre?

• If your nonfiction is less than 1200 words, submit to the flash genre. We are not looking for longer nonfiction.

Payment

• We pay $10 per accepted story, poem, or micro series. We pay through PayPal.

Tips

• Tip jar offerings go to support payment and promotion of writers. All editors at Variant Lit are volunteers.